wet dreams. living machines

right… so this weeks homework was to provide examples of storytelling and how people convey their ideas to others through the use of certain mediums.
Storytelling can take many different forms, but i think the most relevant for use as designers is story telling in the form of advertising and the particular example i am going to use is television ads. Some people might say that the ads are more for the marketing department, but i rekon that if you cant sell you idea or at least visualize how you can sell it, then how the fuck are you going to get your idea out there? or more to the point how did you get it out of your head in the first place.??
Anyway… TV commercials are what many of us (including myself) think to be the bane of humanity. However, when a good ad comes along it sticks in your mind. A well thought out and well executed television ad can be the most effective for of advertising. 30 seconds is a tricky time frame, too long and you’ve lost your audience, to short and you wont have caught there attention. You need to get you point across quickly and clearly and with enough emphasis that the target market will remember it long enough that next time they are out shopping it might still be rolling around in there head and by some slight chance it might pop up and they will actually buy your product!
SO yeah anyway here are a few great ads that get to the point…
MERCEDES ADD
CITROEN ADD
BUNDY ADD
and just for fun here are some wierd ads for outpost.com that have pretty much fuck all to do with what they represent as a company but kinda funny
OUTPOST_1
OUTPOST_2
OUTPOST_3

Heres a video that sorta involves some kind of story telling, at the very least its a pisser, and hopefully gets you all motivated for the task at hand…
monkey balls

well i survived the first step of making biodiesel without killing or maiming myself with nasty nasty chemicals! so far so good, all that there is to do now is wait…
As for the rest of my project it is coming along swimmingly…
just thought id post incase anyone was wondering if id blown my self up or something

This last week I have been doing a lot of research about biofuels and as to whether they are a viable alternative to fossil fuels. The main biofuel I was looking at was biodiesel. Biodiesel seems to be the best refined of all the biofuels and it also has wells of information on it, and also on how to make it at home.
This got me thinking on how easy it would be to produce your own biodiesel, which means you are not paying the double tax on fossil diesel as well as helping the environment for a cleaner and more efficient fuel.
Hopefully, with the help of this website: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html , over the next few weeks I will be able to make my own biodiesel. I am hoping if I can make it any other idiot can make it, which will prove it easy enough to make at home.
Also I hope to look in to the possibility of growing large enough amounts of plants to create your own biofuel without having to purchase someone else’s vegetable oil, in order to become as self-reliant as possible.
The only problem I currently have is finding an appropriate test for my biofuel, due to time restrictions and possible troubles/costs I plan to only make a small amount of biodiesel. Hopefully I can find a hire company that has small diesel generators or something else appropriate.

At the moment i am still not exactly sure exactly what i want to focus on. however, i was leaning towards something about this so called threat of “global warming” and how (if possible) biotech will effect it. although at the moment i am still extremely skeptical about this whole thing. They say sea levels are rising, yet levels at my local breaks have gone down over the last generation. And also all the hype about stopping the use of petrol in cars and the push for a move towards electric cars. Petrol cars are accountable for 8% of greenhouse gasses, where as electricty production (ie burning coal) accounts for 48%. So technically electric cars are worse for the environment then petrol cars, because u have to plug ur electric car in to ur house every night to charge her up. anyway ill get back to u…

After looking at pages of biotech wonders, I did eventually find a few things that interested me. Firstly, the way in which humans have used nature for thousands of years to help them in everyday tasks as well as in some that aren’t so everyday. And also the way in which humans are beginning to be able to control the bodily functions for the benefit of recreating human tissues.
One thing that interested me most is the research that is going on, albeit quite controversially, in regard to growing human tissues and organs. The ability for us to have a heart, lung or whatever organ we require grown from our own cells and easily transplantable without fear of rejection is rather exciting. It may mean that we have the ability to live longer lives. It does begin to sound quite science fiction, is the possibility of immortality looming?
This does also offcourse leave the door open for genetic uniformity, like in the 1932 novel, A Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley. There is the possibility for these new technologies to be used incorrectly, as Huxley shows in one possible scenario. A world where humans are created, not born, and they are already chosen to be beautiful or ugly, or what ever genetic characteristic best suits their station.
However, this new technology provides the possibility to save a lot of people who are waiting for donated organs.